Backgammon can be learned quickly and requires only two players. Backgammon game can be played either in a friendly, social way or very competitively. At GameColony.com you can easily find a backgammon opponent online day or night, at all different skill levels, in a variety of types of competition. Free games are available as well as various tournaments for cash prizes.

Backgammon is a game where skill factor (as opposed to luck) is predominant.
Especially in the longer run, skilled backgammon players will win far more often. The skill factor further increases with the multi-point matches for a higher number of points.

Cigar Afficionado has a very colorful description of a strong backgammon player who calls backgammon as "an open information game...where
there aren't any hidden cards. You can see when people, yourself included, make mistakes. If you're properly objective, you can assess your opponents' weaknesses. And more important, you can assess your own weaknesses."

Do players "gamble" when they play in backgammon tournaments for cash prizes?

According to the statutes of most US states, gambling is defined as: risking something of value upon the outcome of a contest of chance. See here how a US court decided in favor of backgammon, ruling it to be a non-gambling game of skill. That's why when players compete in backgammon tournaments or games for cash prizes, they do not "gamble". Playing backgammon for money can be described, therefore, as "competitive entertainment" rather than "gambling".
In the longer run, the more skilled player is bound to prevail and win more matches, tournaments and cash prizes!

GameColony has a rating system and a ranking Ladder system for backgammon and other games of skill. Participation in Ladder offers an exciting way to compete with other players at GameColony.com. For example, every 1st of the month Top 10 Ladder players receive prizes in $Tickets. $Tickets can be used to play and win cash prizes.

If you are new to competitive backgammon, it would be prudent to start with low entry-fee tournaments or mini-tourneys that this site offers. As skill in backgammon is of paramount importance, if you play against more skilled players who tend to play for higher entry fees, you won't be in their class and you will lose. If you're not comfortable playing for money, you can always play for free here.

Some players prefer to play more competitively and add some competitive "spice" to a game of backgammon. For players who prefer competitive entertainment for cash prizes, GameColony has a special internal currency -- called $Tickets. 1 $Ticket = $1 USD.
Players may cash-out their $Tickets at any time (rate: 1 $Ticket = $1 USD) or use them to win instant $Prizes in Tournaments and Mini-Tourneys online.

When you recommend friends to GameColony.com, every time they participate in Ticket-based events (such as Tournaments) you will receive a 20% bonus!
For players who recommend their friends to GameColony.com has some bonuses when you sign up and make your first deposit. Firstly, the starting deposit is only $5 so you can go try your luck with little to lose, now if you deposit $20 you get an extra $20 for free, again read all the conditions and rules applied to this bonus.

Our Referral Policy

You can now earn Money (20% Recurring Referral Fees) that will be deposited directly to your GameColony.com account just for referring your friends to us!
Use the "refer-a-friend" button on our home page and enter the email addresses of some of your friends. We'll send them an email with a link to sign up. If they do, you'll get 20% of our profits that have directly resulted from your referred friends participating in on our fee-based Online Tournaments.

You can refer your friends by word of mouth. Tell them to type your username under "Recommended by" in the signup form, and you will earn 20% Recurring Referral Fees when they sign up and start playing our Fee-based Tournaments!
With our Referral program, you will be able to monitor your growing profits in your online account statement.

Backgammon, Poker and Hollywood

Both backgammon and poker are the games filled with the thrill of excitement and drama alike.

Compared to poker, backgammon is also a game where the player's skill (as opposed to luck) is a more predominant factor that determines the game's outcome. The players calculate their moves based on the mathematical probabilities of each position.

Backgammon players tend to be much more passionate than poker players which should make backgammon more suited for television as you would rarely see any display of passion from poker players. Just as poker had a tremendous increase in popularity in the last few years, backgammon can also share the TV limelight and capture its fair share of the TV audience. The passion of competitive backgammon and the players should appeal to the TV viewers as much or more than poker.

Some of the greatest poker players who were also great backgammon players include Paul Magriel, Erik Seidel, Gus Hansen, and even the legendary Stu Ungar.

Stu Ungar, who is better known for his unmatched poker and gin-rummy accomplishments, in 1984 made the finals of the Las Vegas backgammon tournament losing to Leslie Stone. Tom McEvoy, who is a 1983 WSOP poker champion, still plays competitive backgammon.

Backgammon was spreading like wildfire in the 70's with games played at discos and restaurants. Celebrities like Hugh Hefner and the late Don Adams were showing off at backgammon clubs. Don Adams played backgammon at the Cavendish West club in West Hollywood, and he also played poker at Hollywood Park Casino.

Tobey "Spiderman" Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio are among many current Hollywood celebrities who enjoy competitive backgammon. Nicole Kidman was heard asking for backgammon playing tips as she was interested in how to improve her backgammon game

Backgammon can be played live on the Internet, on line. There are many sites to play either for free or for money prizes. You can watch good backgammon players at GameColony.com and learn from them to play for free and later to play for cash prizes competitively.

Online Poker players lack one important the skill element that face-to-face poker offers: the players cannot read facial expressions, body movements, etc.
It seems that one of the skill elements in online poker would be that of a statistician -- keeping tabs on what other players did historically in various situations. In this regard, online poker has less skill to offer than land-based poker.

The biggest disadvantage of online poker is that it is extremely susceptible to player collusion -- despite all of the unnamed 'proprietary measures' that online poker sites claim to implement. A bunch of 'friends' can collude by creating different player identities with different paying methods, different IP addresses and use external IM communications to share their cards and sand-bag their opponents in high-stakes games. This is not rocket science & it's being done right and left at most online poker sites today.

All online sites where four or more players (partners or not) play card games, suffer from the same
fatal flaw.
Two-player online games for money like online backgammon, gin-rummy, cribbage on the other hand, are flourishing more & more on the Internet now as in addition to their higher skill element they are totally collusion-proof.

Two-player card and board games offered by sites like should eventually beat poker in popularity.

At GameColony you can play online tournaments in 22
multiplayer games of skill. You'll find here a thriving online community where players from all over the world are engaged in healthynon-gambling skill-based competition -- either for prizes or for free.